Saturday, March 3, 2007

The Nature of God

What do you suppose God would look like, if you could see him? I have seen drawings of God and he usually appears as a larger version of a human being. But lets consider this carefully.

First of all, why would God need eyes? God has perfect knowledge so that he knows everything. Our senses are to give us information, to tell us what we do not know. If a being knew everything, why would any further information be necessary? If you knew everything, you could put on a blindfold and go through life just as well as if you did not have the blindfold on. The same goes for all the other senses.

What about a body? Why would God, or any perfect being, need legs if he could simply will himself anywhere he wanted to go? Muscles would be of no use to a being who could likewise will anything to move wherever he wanted it to go. It is obvious that a being could never have perfect knowledge if he was dependent on a brain made of limited matter to contain that knowledge. We can conclude that if a being required no limbs or muscles and could not maintain his perfect knowledge in a crude brain made of matter, that he would not need support organs such as heart, stomach, lungs and liver to maintain his body. In fact, it becomes clear that a perfect being cannot be dependent on a matter body.

Human beings, and any creature with a body made of matter, is purposely designed to be imperfect. If we knew everything, we would not need senses. If we could will things around, we would have no use for muscles or limbs. If an exercise club tells you that you can have the perfect body, you can reply that the very idea of "the perfect body" is a contradiction in terms. Even if a human being could be "perfect" as a human being, that person would still be merely a perfect form of imperfection. We are simply designed to be imperfect.

So, what then does "perfect" mean? The way I see it, a being lives in the world, or whatever environment he lives in. If a being were perfect, he could simply will his environment to be the way he wanted it. But on the other hand, if a being lived in a perfect world he would not need to be perfect himself because the world (or environment) would be as ideal for him as if he were perfect himself. Thus, we see that for a being in an environment perfection can be redundant if both the being and the environment were perfect. A perfect being can live in an imperfect environment or an imperfect being can live in a perfect environment but the results will be no better if a perfect being lived in a perfect environment. It seems obvious that the antithesis of perfection is labor. The less work is necessary, the closer to perfection is the being-environment combination.

I notice that there is a relationship that changes as we move from perfect forms of imperfection to absolute perfection. If we have perfect water and imperfect water and we mix the two together, the perfect water ceases to be and we get all imperfect water. But if we have a being living in an environment, if one or the other is perfect, it becomes irrelevant if the other is not perfect and regardless, we get a perfect being-environment combination.

True, or absolute, perfection means to be both perfect and infinite. If humans were perfect, we would still not be infinite. God must have an infinity of aspects that humans cannot even relate to. God has infinite power not only in the ways we can relate to, such as strength, love and, intellect, but also in a multitude of ways that we cannot imagine. God is omnipresent, omnipotent and, omniscient but is also an infinity of other omnis that we cannot imagine.

It is like getting to know a person who always has another facet that you did not know about. So much of what God does with regard to us, is purposely dones so that humans can relate to it. The ultimate example is sending Jesus down here to be a human being. It is not a valid metaphor to think that an ant compares to a human being as a human being compares to God because an ant has intellect and strength, on it's own level, as we do. God is infinitely above a human being in comparison to how much a human being is above an ant. He almost certainly has an infinity of interests beyond our universe.

God has infinite fields of knowledge that humans cannot begin to imagine. There must be entire universes of things humans have never discovered, of things unknowable to us that God knows everything about. Even within our own realms, God could show you endless amazing connections that you had never before noticed. God knows of relationships and patterns all around us that none of us have ever imagined, even in areas that we think we know all about.

In fact, God must see so many repetitive patterns that to him, our universe has essentially no complexity at all. In contrast to our view of the universe, God can see a multitude of repetitive patterns while perceiving the universe with no complexity at all. God can trace everything in our universe to his thought that began it and so, to him, it has no complexity.

One difference between us and God is that we are confined within our universe, while God is not. The time and space that exists in our universe does not limit God. We, confined to matter, live in an aquarium of dimensions and the mathematical strictures that result. None of this applies to God, he is outside the aquarium. The mathematics that applies to us does not apply to God. To him, all numbers must be equal. There is no difference between five and nine to God. With our limited minds, we can conceive that there is a number beyond our imagination that we refer to as infinity. But to God, with his infinite mind, infinity appears to him as one. In fact, the only real numbers from God's point of view are zero and one.

This brings us back to labor. We saw that the lack of labor necessity is a hallmark of a perfect being-environment combination. We see now that this is because of the fact that numbers, as we know them, have no meaning to God. Unlike an earthly architect planning a building, to God there is no gap at all between conception and construction. Neither is there any limit to the methods used by God, he can do a numberless number of tasks and can accomplish each in a numberless number of ways. Unlike humans, he can get infinite results from infinitesimal effort.

Humans' range of industry is limited. We can increase it exponentially but never with perfect wisdom. God's range of industry is infinite and perfect. He can effortlessly turn a little bit of mud into an infinity of gold. And he can do it without breaking any rules or laws of physics. It is not that God is breaking these laws by performing what we perceive as miracles, it is just that he is not in our aquarium and is not bound by these rules. God can do anything simply by thinking about it and can cause anything to happen whether it is possible or not and can stop anything from happening whether it is inevitable or not. God can make anything out of anything.

God's realm of possibility with any given is unlimited. Suppose you have two coins, each with a head and a tail. That would give you four possible combinations. However God, being outside the mathematics of our universe would not be limited at all to four possible combinations with these coins. Even though we cannot possibly imagine how he could get around it. God can take a board eight feet long and bridge a twelve-foot gap with it without cutting or stretching the board or without breaking any laws of physics. Even though the way he would do it is beyond our comprehension. God could take any two numbers and make them sum or product to any other number without breaking any rules, but once again it would be totally beyond us how he would do it.

Even if God came within the aquarium of rules and mathematics that is our universe, he could still do anything he could have done from outside it simply because he has perfect knowledge. God could write the greatest book ever written while being allowed to use each letter of the alphabet only once. No writer in this world can imagine how God would accomplish this, but then none of us has anywhere near perfect knowledge. If God were given a penny, he could find a way to buy more with it than could Bill Gates with all of his money. Once again, we cannot fathom how this can be done. But then God did not design us to have perfect knowledge.

Nothing must be of value to God because he could so easily replicate anything. The only exception is his spiritual creations such as angels and humans. We can be sure of the absolute purity of God's love for us because we have absolutely nothing that he needs and he could replace us whenever he chose.

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